War at the Improv

We will soon get to see what effect a sudden uptick in oil prices will actually have. Will it send modern economies into recession? And when investors see it depressing corporate earnings?

Tuesday, March 17th, 2026

Bill Bonner, from Youghal, Ireland

‘Oil is to the real economy what credit is to Wall Street.’

--Tom Dyson (or words to that effect)

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday here in Ireland. A time for the ‘wearing of the green.’ Many downtown areas will be closed off for parades.

But here at Bonner Private Research, our dot-connecting mission continues as usual. And...whoa...what a show. We are looking at some marvelous, exploding dots...like fireworks thrown up into the air, bursting into hundreds of sparkling cinders before they fall to the ground. And any one of them could fall into a tank of jet fuel. What an exciting time!

And in this incendiary illumination we see the outlines of several great questions.

If Tom is right, we will soon get to see what effect a sudden uptick in oil prices will actually have. Will it send modern economies into recession? And when investors see it depressing corporate earnings, will it mean a crash in the stock market?

But that’s not all. There are also the strategic questions. Can Iran — whose military has been almost annihilated — actually control the Strait of Hormuz? Could its rockets and drones sink a US Navy warship? And what happens to modern civilization when its most precious commodity — its lifeblood — is suddenly much harder to get?

Governments go broke? People go hungry? Riots? Revolutions?

MN Gordon adds ominous background music:

Skyrocketing oil prices are a noted precursor to declining economic activity. Higher gas prices are not just an inconvenient market fluctuation. They act as a regressive tax on every single human being who eats, moves, or buys things. When the price of gas spikes and the pumps run dry, the very foundation of the global economy crumbles.

The US strategic plan has still not been revealed. For many years, America’s generals warned against attacking Iran. It could control the Strait of Hormuz, they pointed out...which could have devastating consequences. As if to confirm our hypothesis — that Donald Trump’s historic mission (not his intention) is to isolate and weaken the US empire — POTUS rushed boldly in where others feared to tread.

And now, surprise!

The Strait of Hormuz is closed to the US and Israel. And surprise again. Business Insider:

Sky-high gas prices are already hitting the economy

“When gas prices spike, commuting effectively becomes a pay cut,” one chief operating officer told us.

While a few employers say they’re softening their RTO stances amid rising gas prices, the vast majority are unlikely to change their in-office requirements, particularly in a cooling job market where many workers lack the leverage to push back.

The latest increase is a reminder of how quickly surging gas prices can ripple through the economy.

So what happens next?

Team Trump could announce victory...bring the troops home and stage a parade down 5th avenue. After all, they deserve to celebrate; they’ve ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear capacity twice!

Trouble is, as long as Iran still blocks the Strait of Hormuz, it will be a fake triumph. Already, the attack on Iran looks like an improv war…where the main protagonist makes it up as he goes along. And now, he can either end the war in what will look like another failure. Or, he can expand it (with footsoldiers, for example). Either way, it will probably hurt Republican chances in November elections.

Note that Iran doesn’t have to block all traffic in the Strait of Hormuz to succeed. The plausible threat of destroying a tanker or two is enough to greatly reduce ready supplies of oil...and greatly increase fuel and fertilizer prices.

A further note: the idea of using US Navy escorts to free up shipping seems cockamamie. Ships are drone magnets. The Iranians might be able to destroy a US ship of the line, as well as the commercial traffic it is protecting.

And even if the escort plan succeeded, there aren’t enough ships in the US Navy to uncork the bottleneck. Trump tried to solve this problem by inviting other nations to join in. But alienating friends and allies comes at a cost. So far, Italy, Spain, France, Norway, Canada, Japan, Australia and Germany have all wisely said ‘no’...other nations simply haven’t answered.

So, we may be looking at more than just a contest between Israel and the US on one side and Iran and its proxies on the other. We might also be looking at a major test for Team Trump and for the US empire…or even a major test for oil-fired civilization itself.

Can it avoid a war that might cut it off from the very thing it needs most?

More to come...

Regards,

Bill Bonner